Forward Momentum
by sixbeforelunch
Summary: After Voyager's return, Janeway and Tuvok build a future together.


Janeway detests these public relations functions that have become an integral part of her life since they snuck up and made her an Admiral while she wasn't paying attention.

That isn't really hyperbole. The weeks and months after Voyager's return were hard, harder than anyone except her therapist really knows. Everything that happened in the Delta Quadrant-every bad decision, every death, every skin-of-their-teeth escape, every questionable moral decision, every time she'd clung too hard to the regulations or not hard enough-all of it came crashing down on her one morning twelve days after their return to Earth. Being a practical, reasonable sort of woman, it had only taken sixteen hours of off-and-on crying and punching couch cushions before she remembered that she was on Earth now, and Earth had things that the Delta Quadrant hadn't been able to offer her, like psychologists.

It was during that messy time of trying to find the right therapist, the right therapy, the right medication, and all while maintaining enough of a functional front that Starfleet wouldn't flip it's script from 'we embrace all neurologies' to 'we appreciate your service and feel it would be best for all concerned if you focus on your health at this time '-which was really just code for 'please take this honorable discharge and go be crazy elsewhere'-that they'd decided to promote her. She'd taken the promotion, the desk, and all the rest of it without question, feeling the whole day like her head was stuffed with cotton and everything was happening very far away to someone who wasn't her.

Fortunately not long after, she found Greta, a no-nonsense woman about Janeway's age, and they'd clicked instantly. That, combined with the lifestyle changes, bio-feedback training, and six months of medication made a world of difference.

Now, eight months later, she feels more like herself than she has in years, but she's still an admiral, flying a desk. She's got enough self-awareness to know she hates it, even if she hasn't yet figured out what to do about that.

Today she's at a secondary school in Seoul, judging a science fair and smiling for pictures. The one and only thing getting her through this miserable day is knowing that Tuvok is right this minute on a passenger transport from Vulcan. She surreptitiously checks the time. Assuming they were on schedule-and it was a Vulcan ship so they were on schedule-he arrived at Earth Orbital station about an hour ago. Allowing time to pass through customs and board a shuttle, he'll be landing soon, if he hasn't already.

She poses for a few final photos, congratulates the winner again, and slips out the back before the reporters notice her leaving. Admiralty has a few advantages, and easy access to site-to-site transports is one of them, so she's beaming into the shuttle hub in Mexico City a few minutes later. Tuvok is, of course, waiting exactly where he said he'd be, standing in a sort of relaxed parade rest, hands clasped behind his back and his bag at his feet.

Janeway wants to pull him into a hug, but they're in public and he'd hate that, so she settles for stepping a little deeper into his personal space than most people are allowed and smiles at him. "Tuvok. It so good to see you."

"You as well, Admiral."

She grimaces. "Last I heard you resigned your commission. Let's drop the Admiral."

He nods. "As you prefer. Kathryn."

Hearing him use her given name gives her a warm comfort that she doesn't have time to contemplate right now, so she just smiles again, and hooks her arm through his. It's Earth, not Vulcan, so nobody really notices and Tuvok actually relaxes a little when she does it.

Having him here, she feels like a weight has been lifted. They've passed letters, talked a few times on subspace, but haven't seen each other since he left for Vulcan. She's been reading between the lines of his communications, and she suspects things haven't been easy for him lately, but he hasn't come out and told her what's going on. All she knows is that he was successfully treated for his illness through a meld with his son, and that he's been spending a lot of time with his children.

"How are the kids?" she asks as they make their way to the shuttle station. Site-to-site transports are all well and good, but if you abuse the system too much, nasty memos land on your desk. It's not much of an inconvenience. The shuttle can make it from Mexico City to Phoenix in eighty one minutes according to the schedule. Getting places in hours instead of days or weeks or months is one of the luxuries of planet-side living.

"My children and grandchild are well," Tuvok says. They're taking one of the small regional shuttles. It fits about twenty people, and only half of the seats are taken so it's easy to find two seats together. Tuvok stows his only bag under his seat and buckles his seatbelt in accordance with the posted rules even though no one else bothers.

"And T'Pel?" Janeway asks.

It's not a reaction most people would notice, but she's known Tuvok long enough to see the way his jaw muscle tenses at the question. "She is also well," he says, voice a little too calm.

There's no following up on that in public, so they pass the time discussing their old crew mates. Harry is making up for lost time on board the _Marikam_ , promoted to full lieutenant and on a fast-track to be an XO in the next few years if his career continues like this. Chakotay, like a lot of the former Maquis, stuck around long enough to take his pardon (with perhaps less groveling thanks than Starfleet would have liked) before heading back out toward the edges of Federation Space. He's working with the survivors of the Maquis slaughter and their families, trying to get everyone back on their feet. It's good work, but it makes her nervous because she knows how quickly the politics out there shift, and how easily she and Chakotay could end up on opposite sides once again. She doesn't want to think that would happen, but she'd be a fool not to realize that it could.

Tom and B'Elanna are happy. B'Elanna is working on a massive engineering project out by Alpha Centauri, and Tom is shockingly content to be a parent and a husband and give flying lessons to aspiring pilots from time to time. He's also working on a book about twentieth century television and movies. B'Elanna says it keeps him out of trouble, and encourages the endeavor, even if their home does now contain three replica television sets and an antique film projector around which Tom is constructing an honest-to-goodness theater complete with popcorn machine.

By the time they're walking up to her door, they've covered all of the senior staff, and a good number of the rest of the crew as well.

Janeway could have taken admiral's quarters in San Francisco, but she can't think of anything more depressing than living in a high rise with a bunch of Starfleet brass. It would be like being back at the Academy without any of the wild nights on the beach or drunken middle-of-the-night philosophy discussions, and where's the fun in that? Instead, she got a house outside of Phoenix. It's a small house, mid-23rd century design lovingly preserved by the former occupants. The commute to Starfleet HQ isn't bad, and three days out of five she works at home anyway.

Tuvok traveled light, so it only takes him a minute to unpack in her guest room, and while he does, she replicates herbal tea for him, coffee for herself. He comes back down, and takes a seat at the counter in the kitchen, bare feet resting against the legs of the stool.

Before she can ask, he says, "My marriage to T'Pel has been dissolved."

She's surprised, but not shocked. It explains why Tuvok contacted her a week ago asking to come visit. Less than a year after getting home to Vulcan, and Tuvok is running to Earth on short notice just to see her? It was flattering, but it didn't ring true. Tuvok doesn't like Earth, and his family is the most important thing in the galaxy to him. He wouldn't leave them so soon after so much time apart for no good reason. But if he's split from T'Pel, then home is probably full of memories that even Vulcan control can't quite shut out.

She takes a swallow of coffee and tries to draw him out with, "I thought Vulcan law didn't allow for divorce."

"The laws regarding the disillusion of a marriage are less permissive than many, but there are times when the only logical course is for a marriage to come to an end." He's running his thumb back and forth against the outside of his mug, the only outward sign of what has got to be a lot of internal turmoil. "T'Pel formed another bond in my absence. The situation was discussed, and in the end it was determined that the most logical course would be for her and I to part ways to allow her to move forward with her new husband."

"You were faithful to her for all that time..."

Anger flashes across Tuvok's face, but it's gone in an instant. "I had every reason to think her still living. For four years, she had no such assurance. She did nothing wrong." Not anger at T'Pel, anger for her. Even with all this, he's still loyal.

And he's right. T'Pel didn't do anything wrong any more than Mark did. "It still hurts, though," Janeway says.

"Yes, very much." It's a surprising admission coming from him.

They drink their beverages in silence, having already used most of the easy topics of conversation, and afterward go out to dinner. She takes him to a theme restaurant, mostly to see his reaction. She gets a double-raised eyebrow, but he doesn't object, which is how they end up eating dinner with a harpoon hanging over their table, served by a waitress in a pair of breeches and a puffy shirt and an absurd feathered hat.

The food is good for all of that, and after dinner, they linger over drinks.

"Are you able to tell me about your work?" Tuvok asks. He's watching some kids play on the full-sized replica pirate ship in the middle of the restaurant.

"Project Pathfinder is being expanded in new directions." She can't tell him that they're mostly using it to try and monitor Borg activity. That part is still classified, and he wouldn't have the clearance even if he were still in Starfleet. "I'm one of the admirals overseeing the project, working with Admiral Paris."

He turns his attention back to her. "What is your role?"

"Logistics, primarily."

The eyebrow goes up. "That does not seem logical. Logistics is not one of your primary skills. You are a scientist above all things. _Voyager_ was supposed to be a scientific research vessel."

She hasn't forgotten. She tries not to think about it because the what-ifs will drive her mad, but she has not forgotten. She was supposed to captain a science ship, following behind the exploratory vessels, doing the deep-dives into their discoveries that they couldn't, and occasionally making discoveries of her own. "I picked up a lot of skills in the Delta Quadrant."

"In the Delta Quadrant you became what you had to become to get us home. I-we are grateful to you for that. But we are home now. Would you not be more content to return to the activities that most please you?"

"Probably," Janeway says, and excuses herself to the bathroom as a way of ending the conversation. She stands in the stall for several minutes, her head resting against the door, staring up at the ceiling. Tuvok can't know what a nerve he hit. She hates what she's doing now, but she wants-needs to be in Starfleet. She wore that uniform like armor for seven years and now...now she puts it on even when she works on her couch because she's no longer sure what she'd be without it. If she wants to keep wearing the uniform, she has to do what Starfleet tells her to do.

The truth is, she was paraded around like a hero in public, but behind closed doors, it was made clear to her that command wasn't entirely sanguine about her. She made a lot of questionable decisions out there. They're never going to give her a ship again. The promotion was the easiest way of accomplishing that without having to do anything politically messy.

There are plenty of people with more political clout than she has who would happily see her drummed out of the service. If she starts making waves about disliking her post, they might just show her the door.

She gets herself back under control and goes back to the table. "I apologize if I upset you," Tuvok says after she's settled.

"It's fine." Fine. Fine. Everything is fine. She can hear Greta in her head. "If you say everything is fine one more time, I am going to throw something at you." She actually followed through on the threat five minutes later too. Admittedly it was only a pillow, but Janeway still admired a woman who did what she said she was going to do.

Janeway and Tuvok settle into a comfortable routine fairly quickly. Tuvok is self-sufficient. There's no pressure to keep him entertained or feed him or clean up after him. He spends mornings in his room meditating, and the afternoons in the garden, stretched out under the blazing Arizona summer sun as content as a cat in a sunbeam. On the days when she works at home, she often joins him outside after the sun dips low in the sky. They watch the sunset and then go out for a meal. On the days she works at HQ, there's dinner waiting for her when she gets home. Sometimes replicated, sometimes ordered in, occasionally cooked by Tuvok, but always somehow ready at just the right time no matter when she gets home.

They don't talk about the duration of his visit. After two weeks, he says, tentatively, "I do not wish to overstay my welcome-"

She cuts him off. "Tuvok you are the easiest house guest I can imagine. Stay as long as you want."

He's healing, that much is obvious. The end of an eight-decade marriage isn't the sort of thing you shake off overnight. She's more than happy to provide a safe space for him to find his footing. Frankly, it's comfortable having him around. Voyager was home for so long, and they lived in tight quarters there. She isn't used to these long stretches on her own. She can go into HQ any time she wants, but it's not the same. Earth is taking longer to get used to than she'd ever imagined it would. She still wakes up in the middle of the night and starts to panic before she remembers that the lack of engine noise doesn't mean something has gone horribly wrong.

Seven comes by during the third week of his visit. Seven is working on Pathfinder also, although Starfleet also has her on a few side projects that even Janeway doesn't have the clearance for. Some people trust Seven, and a lot of people don't, but she's their best resource when it comes to the Borg, and Starfleet is making the most of that.

But today she isn't thinking about the Borg threat. Today she's just enjoying the company of her friends. Seven is making dinner, and Tuvok is setting the table, and Janeway is sitting with a glass of wine in her hand watching both of them. Seven has recently gotten away from the outfits she wore on Voyager, and begun experimenting with personal style. It's a good sign that she's moving forward in reclaiming her humanity. Right now, she's wearing a trendy dress and impractical shoes. Tomorrow she might be in a jumpsuit and boots. She's like a teenager, still finding what works for her.

Seven and Tuvok have always gotten along well, in large part because neither of them asks for more than the other is willing to give. Tuvok helps Seven cook. They're mostly silent, and what little conversation there is centers on work and the inefficiencies of many human customs, but when Seven begins to sing, Tuvok actually joins in. Janeway, who can't carry a tune to save her life, bursts into applause as soon as the impromptu concert is done. Neither of them actually acknowledge the applause, but she can tell it pleases both of them.

"You both sing beautifully," she says, helping herself to a piece of toast with olive tapenade. "Especially you, Seven. You seem even better than before, if that's possible."

"I have been taking lessons," Seven says. "My teacher is more skilled in music than the Doctor, although I admit I sometimes miss working with him. He has his own concerns at present, however."

Photonic rights, as they're being called. How fitting that after centuries of research, they stumbled onto AI by accident. Not that most people are ready to admit it, mainly because acknowledging photonic beings as people means wrestling with some huge questions. Data (and Lore, not that his existence is publicly known), the exocomps, those were one-offs that could be treated as outliers, but in just twenty years, holograms have become ubiquitous throughout the Federation, and the problems associated with their sentience are correspondingly wide-reaching. At what point does a hologram go from a computer program to a sentient being? Does it have to do with how long they're run? The complexity of their programming? Whether or not they're allowed to retain memories from one session to the next?

What sort of rights are they talking about? The right to self-determination? The right to reproduce? To vote?

If holograms are people, can you alter their programming without their consent? And how does informed consent even work? Janeway had to wrestle with some of these questions herself, and she certainly doesn't have the answers.

"The civil rights firm that he is working with is well regarded," Tuvok says. "And their campaign was recently joined by another photonic being called Vic Fontane."

It's going to get complicated before it's over.

"I believe some people are now advocating for an outlawing of holographic technology to sidestep the issue entirely," Seven says.

"Some people are stupid," Janeway replies, and neither Seven nor Tuvok disagree with that.

A few days later, Tuvok follows her to San Francisco because he wants to use the Starfleet high-gravity gym. She's stuck in meetings all morning, but they're supposed to get together for lunch. Astonishingly, her last meeting adjourns early, and she walks to the gym to meet him. She's instantly heavier as soon as she walks through the door and just walking across the room becomes a chore. It's mostly high-gravity species in here: Vulcans, Koridians, and the like. Tuvok is on a treadmill, running at a good pace. He's wearing loose pants and a tight gray tank top. She can see his back muscles through the shirt. She sneaks a peek at the stats. He's been running for close to an hour at a four percent incline and an average speed of 10.46 kph in 1.87g and he's not even sweating.

She leans against the front of the machine. "How old are you again?"

"One hundred and fourteen years old, by the Earth calendar," he replies, and stops the treadmill.

She looks him over. She should look half as good at that age. "Are you ready?"

"A moment. I agreed to spar with a cadet." He looks at her, and there's a hint of amusement in his eyes. "He wished to spar earlier, believing I would be too tired after my workout to be a challenging opponent, but I assured him this was not the case."

Janeway grins. This is going to be good.

The cadet is a Vulcan, and judging by the arrogant set of his face and the looks he gets even from the other Vulcans in the gym, Janeway pegs him as one of _those_. Starfleet Academy will either instill some humility into him, or else he's going to arrogantly go out on his first assignment and get someone killed, hopefully just himself.

Tuvok certainly does his part to break the kid of his pride. He takes him down to the mat, hard, three times in quick succession. The fourth time, he leaves him wheezing on the floor and circles around him twice. "You telegraph your moves. You do not shield your mind adequately. You are too reliant on Vulcan martial arts instead of incorporating multiple techniques into your fighting style. All of this makes you predictable." He stops circling and offers him a hand up. The kid hesitates, and then takes it, letting himself be pulled to his feet. Maybe there's hope for him yet.

One of the few Humans in the gym offers Tuvok a towel.

"Unnecessary," he says. "I did not break a sweat." She sees about six cadets fall instantly in love with him.

Janeway puts her hand on his shoulder as they walk away.

They go to lunch at a sushi place Janeway likes. Vulcans don't generally want or need a large midday meal, so he just orders a small miso soup and a cup of tea, and leaves Janeway feeling vaguely gluttonous when she gets two Saturn rolls and a side of fried tofu.

While they eat, she slides a PADD across the table. He reads it over silently, and waits until they have both finished eating to speak.

"An excellent opportunity, uniquely suited to your skills," he says.

"It's not going to be easy to get." Starbase 128 is the new state-of-the-art science station. It's the chance to command while coordinating with at least six different science teams all trying to unlock a different mystery of the universe. A lot of the research is going to be highly classified, and Command wants an admiral at the helm of the station, but there are plenty of admirals who did dual-track command and science degrees at the Academy who are going to be after that post, and most of them have more friends than she does.

"No, it is not," Tuvok says. "But I have never known you to let difficulty stand in the way of your getting what you want."

She's still pondering those words when she tells Paris-the admiral, not her former pilot-about her ambitions. His frown tells her all she needs to know. "You know I have your back, but getting in there is going to be as much about politics as qualifications, and you don't have as many people in your corner as you should."

She puts the application in that day anyway, and goes home to eat dinner with Tuvok on the back patio overlooking the garden. The stars are just coming out, and the breeze is gentle. The heat of the day hasn't gone quite yet, but it's not unbearably hot anymore.

"I do want that posting," she says, looking out at the desert landscape. "But I will miss this. It's good to connect to the dirt now and then."

She puts on a soft instrumental piece of music and stands up, holding out her hand to him. "Dance with me, Tuvok."

He raises an eyebrow, but takes her hand and lets her lead him into a simple box-step. She leans her head against his chest, and he doesn't object. He smells different than he did on Voyager, like anise and vanilla rather than just personal hygiene gel number five.

"I like your soap," she says.

His hand, which has been on her upper back this entire time, slides lower. Not inappropriately low, but down to her lower back. She can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of her blouse. She stops dancing at looks up at him.

"Can I kiss you?"

In answer, he bends down, and brushes his lips against hers. The contact makes her shiver and she reaches up and puts her hand on his neck.

The kiss is gentle, and a little awkward. When they break apart, he's more breathless than he was when running in high gravity. She swallows.

"Do you want to go to have sex with me?"

It wouldn't be the first time, although she's pretty sure Tom honestly thinks it was his holoprogram that got Tuvok through his pon farr. But they only did it once, out of necessity. Tuvok must have known that there was a chance he would lose T'Pel-they were back in contact with the Alpha Quadrant by then-but neither of them had even let themselves consider an ongoing relationship.

He steps back, touches his lips with his fingers, and says in an almost-whisper, "I do, very much. But I have only recently processed the grief resulting from the end of my marriage. I need time to think."

"Of course."

When she wakes up the next morning, she's glad for his caution. It would have been a mistake.

She has Greta that day, and the door has barely closed to her office before she says, "I kissed Tuvok last night." She flops down on the couch and unloads for the next half hour, about Tuvok, about how much she loves him, about helping him through pon farr, about Mark, about that time she fell in love with a holoprogram like an idiot, about what she knows and doesn't know about Vulcan mating bonds, about T'Pel and how she's still mad at her for hurting him but also grateful to her for giving Janeway this chance, about how that last thing makes her feel incredibly guilty because how dare she be even a little bit happy about something that caused Tuvok so much pain?

Greta listens, and when Janeway finally runs out of steam, she asks simply, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with Tuvok?"

That's the question, isn't it. There's no such thing as a casual fling with Tuvok. If they do this, he'll be all in, committed for the rest of his life come what may, and she has to be right there with him. He can't be hurt twice. She won't let anyone do that to him, least of all herself.

"I want Tuvok in my life until I die." She can say that much with certainty.

"As a lover? A husband?"

"I can't answer that yet."

Greta nods. "I'm no expert on Vulcan mating customs, but I know enough to suggest that maybe you shouldn't sleep with him until you can."

Janeway snorts. Yeah. That's probably a good plan. "It could be a moot point anyway. He said he needed time to think."

The idea that he might think it over and decide it's a bad idea scares her, and that says a lot about how much she does want this.

She goes into Starfleet HQ later that day. Paris calls her into his office about an hour later, and when she gets there, Drim is there, flanked by Ikima-sotan. Drim has made it clear that he thinks Janeway should have been court martialed and tossed out on her ear for not using the Caretaker Array to come home in the first place. "Ever hear of a timed bomb?" he said during the very first meeting, and Janeway wanted to punch his smug face because of course she's heard of a timed bomb. She constructed them in her head every night for months after she blew the array. But things were moving too fast, and she had to make a decision then and there. She's already been judged, by a panel of people with more field experience than he ever got filing reports all day, and they came down on her side, so Drim can shove his sanctimonious post-facto analysis of Janeway's command decisions up whatever it is his species uses to eliminate waste.

Ikima-sotan is Drim's right hand woman even though she technically outranks him. When Drim decided to become president of the anti-Kathryn Janeway society, Ikima fell right into lockstep. The Admiralty is the most dysfunctional group of petty backbiters she's ever had the displeasure of working with. She needs to put a few dozen light years between herself and HQ before she loses her mind, or worse becomes one of them.

"Did you put Seven of Nine up to it?" Drim asks.

Janeway blinks, completely confused. Paris seems to be searching her face for any sign that her confusion is faked, and appears relieved when he decides it isn't.

"Up to what?" Janeway asks.

"Do you know who Harana chri'Maras is?" Ikima asked.

"He's a subspace physicist and the leading theorist on trans-warp. Head of the Bight Nova Team. They won the Daystrom Prize two years ago."

Drim looks annoyed that Janeway knew all that. "Yes. Well, he's been working with Seven of Nine for the last few months, and desperately wants her on his new trans-warp project, a project that just so happens to be planned for Starbase 128. Seven is willing to join the project, but says she won't serve under anyone but you."

Janeway rubs her temples. "I'll talk to her. She shouldn't be basing her career decisions on me."

Drim looks like he really wanted her to give a different answer, one he could hold against her. Janeway ignores him. She's gotten very good at it.

She does talk to Seven, but Seven won't budge. She likes working with Janeway, and is equally content working on the Pathfinder project as she would be working on the trans-warp project. She sees no reason why she should put up with a commander who may decrease her efficiency just because of some Command-level politics that mean nothing to her.

Command might retaliate. They could pull Janeway off Pathfinder. Seven is a contract worker with Starfleet, so they can't reassign her, but they could end her contract when the term is up. Janeway points all this out. Seven is Seven-like, and unpersuaded. In the end, Janeway decides to let it play out. Chri'Maras and his team are at the forefront of trans-warp technology, and Starfleet is not going to risk him taking his toys and going home. If he wants Seven, and Seven wants Janeway, she figures she has at least 50-50 odds of getting the post that was originally such a long shot.

It's not how she would have liked to have gotten it, and it's not going to get her any friends, but life doesn't always go the way you want. Best you can do is play the hand you're dealt.

She has a raging headache by the time she gets home, and replicates a cup of strong black coffee as she kicks off her shoes. Tuvok is sitting on the couch. She flops down next to him and groans.

"I could retire. Run away to Risa and spend my days on a beach drinking fruity beverages."

"You could," Tuvok says. "You would be miserable."

True.

"I spoke to T'Pel earlier. I told her what passed between us."

Janeway forces down a surge of jealousy. They ended on good terms. They're friends. She's the mother of his kids. He's not just going to stop having anything to do with her .

"Did she approve?"

He steeples his fingers. "Her approval was not what I sought. But she does know me better than any other living creature. I thought that her input would be valuable."

"And?"

"She thinks that a marriage-" He glances at her, to see how she reacts to the word. Janeway doesn't so much as blink. Marriage was on the table the second they kissed. She's never been commitment phobic, and she already agreed once to spend her life with someone. It might not have happened, but that doesn't change the fact that she has done the work of figuring out if she's cut out for lifelong monogamy and decided that she is. He continues, "-that a marriage between us would be advantageous for me, but is concerned that you might find me...difficult."

"Are you difficult?"

"I can be," he admits.

"Well, so can I."

"That is true," he says, and she laughs.

"Karthyn," he says, and there's that little thrill again at hearing him use her name, "the fact is that my biology is such that I must remarry. And my psychology is such that I will not be entirely content until I do. There is no one I can think of that I would rather be with than you, but you are under no obligation-"

"It's not obligation, Tuvok." She rests her hand on his. "I'm lonely too. I have been for a long time. On _Voyager_ it was impossible, but it isn't anymore, and I want sex and romance in my life again."

He turns his hand over so that they're touching palm-to-palm. "I am not romantic."

She shakes her head. "I don't want flowers and sonnets. I want someone who will be there for me. Someone who will hold me on bad days, and listen when I need to talk. I want someone that I can support in turn. I want a partner."

He nods. "I can be those things."

"I know you can." She sighs. "So where does this leave us?"

He's quiet for several minutes. Janeway lets him think, too tired to do anything but stare up at the ceiling while he does.

"I have a suggestion," he says. "I can create a bond between us. It will be a marriage bond, but it will not be permanent. Without additional effort, it will dissolve on its own in a few weeks. This will give you the experience of what it is to live in a marriage bond without making a final commitment. By giving you greater access to my thoughts, you may also gain an understanding of me, and decide whether you are truly prepared to be with me."

"That sounds very reasonable."

He nods, and says with some hesitation, "There is one caveat I must emphasize. A tentative bond such as this is most easily cemented by the flood of neurochemicals that accompany orgasm."

She laughs again, harder. "So you're saying if we do this and then have sex, we're as good as married."

"By Vulcan law, yes. The bond would be difficult to break, and require an intervention of a healer to unravel. Such an unraveling would be dangerous, not to mention extremely painful, for both of us."

How much did it hurt when they broke the bond between him and T'Pel? Or was that different because of all the time spent apart and T'Pel's new bond?

She turns to face him. "I understand. Do it."

She's melded with Tuvok before, enough times that his fingers on her face feel familiar and comforting. It starts as a simple meld, thoughts flowing past one another and then flowing together. Mind to mind. Thoughts to thoughts.

And then it gets deeper. More intimate. She gasps. She thinks she did. Maybe it was just in her head and not out loud? He's opening himself up to her, showing her not just his thoughts, but his emotions. She's seen emotions ripped out of him before. She's never encountered his emotions freely given. He shows her delight at first holding his children-delight that never diminished after the first. He shows her his sorrow and fear during the first months trapped in the Alpha Quadrant. His terror at the possibility that they might not make it home in time for his illness to be cured and that he might lose his very essence to the disease. He shows her his joy at coming home. He even shows her last night from his own perspective, desire mixed up with guilt and fear and hope.

She gives as much as she can of herself in return, welcoming him into the deepest recesses of her mind, even those that she tries to stay out of herself.

When he breaks away, it's strange. She's experienced a telepathic bridge before, but this is different. She can tell just by looking at him how vulnerable this has made him.

She takes one of his hands in both of hers. "Whatever happens, you're safe with me." She'd die before she gave up the barest hint of what he's shown her here tonight.

After that, things change, and don't. There's a form, GRX-14507/a Notification of a New Telepathic Bond. Fortunately she already went through the unpleasant process of having a telepathic block put in her mind to keep classified knowledge in a little black box that only she can access. It came with her promotion to chief science officer on the _Al-Batani_. Starfleet insists on checking the integrity of it, however. There is a world of difference between melding with Tuvok and having a stranger poke around in her head, checking that her blocks are shored up and sufficient to keep Tuvok from accidentally stumbling onto the password to the Pathfinder mainframe.

She goes home that night and asks Tuvok to meld with her. She wants to replace the cold, clinical intrusion of a Vulcan telepathic security officer with the mind of her best friend. He agrees, and slips easily into her mind. He shows her what it is to meld for the sheer pleasure of it. There are games, she discovers to her utter delight, and he teaches her the trick of mentally constructing an object piece by piece while the other person tries to take it apart at the same time. She loses, of course, but it's more fun than she ever would have imagined.

Later he tells her that these games are mostly for children to learn telepathic control, but admits that adults sometimes play them just for enjoyment. In her case they are genuinely useful. She needs to learn how to control the bond, how to mark thoughts as private, or ask for support, or tell him to get out of her head for a minute, all without saying a word, and how she in turn can pick up on the fact that he wants her to stop trying to figure out what he's thinking and feeling even if she does have that access now.

After the first week, she starts to tune the bond out most of the time, but when she's tired, or stressed, she feels like press, like a mental hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

"Am I annoying you?" she asks one night over dinner. "With all of my feelings?"

"No. You are more...temperamental than T'Pel, but it is no more than I was prepared for."

He reaches over and refills her wine glass without her having to ask. It's handy, this telepathy thing.

If her relationship with Tuvok is as comfortable as her favorite robe, work is a pair of too-small shoes. Her enemies-no, she refuses to think of them as enemies, because enemies are people who want you dead, not out of a job. Her detractors have pulled out some of her more questionable command decisions as reasons why she does not deserve the post. She screwed up out there. She can admit that now. She did a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Having it all thrown up in her face again...sometimes she wonders if Drim is right and she has no business in Starfleet.

Tuvok catches her brooding one night and comes up behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders. It turns out that being married, even trial-married, to Tuvok comes with amazing massages. His long, strong fingers find the knot just below her shoulder blade and slowly work it out. "Tell me," he says as his other hand rubs her neck.

"I made a lot of mistakes. Everything was gone over with a fine-toothed comb when I got home, and I made it through that okay, but now I have to stare at them again and..." She sighs. "Greta says she thinks I developed an unreasonable degree of confidence in my own abilities-" it's a nice way of saying borderline delusions of grandeur "-out there in order to protect myself from the reality of the enormity of what I was up against. But now I've come back down to Earth, literally, and mistakes that I used to be able to dismiss or rationalize away...I can't do that anymore . I feel like I'm staring at myself in an unclouded mirror for the first time in a long time and I'm not sure I like what I see. Maybe I don't deserve that post."

"It is very hard to examine past errors, especially errors which cost lives."

She winces. "You think I screwed up?"

"Of course you 'screwed up'. Only a god would have been able to face those circumstances and not do so, and you are not a god."

"Don't tell the ensigns," she mutters, and Tuvok is amused. She likes this, not having to guess as to whether or not her joke landed.

"Kathryn, not once did you make a decision out of malice. Not once did you neglect your duties. You were never petty, or uncaring, or greedy, or needlessly violent. You earned the respect and loyalty of the crew of _Voyager_. And I do not doubt that you will earn the loyalty and respect of the people at your next command as well."

She turns to face him, and takes his hand, running her index finger back and forth across his palm. It makes his hands start to tremble ever so slightly. She gets the hand thing now, really gets it.

After a few seconds he pulls away, and momentarily steeples his fingers, taking back control. "Good night."

Right. No sex until they're sure. "Good night." Regretfully, she watches him leave, and goes upstairs to throw cold water on her face.

The next morning, he's sitting on the couch when she wakes up. He's usually awake before her, but rarely the first one out of his room. He meditates in the morning. She likes when he does, generally. Sometimes when he's wrestling with something thorny, the bond starts to feel heavy and uncomfortable, but usually all she senses during those times is quiet peace.

Today he's either skipped his meditation, or finished it before she woke up. There's a cup of coffee, still hot, waiting for her. She almost asks how he knew when to replicate it, but she can guess the answer. He sensed her wake up, knows how long it is between when her feet hit the ground and when she comes down for her coffee, and timed it all accordingly. Perfectly logical.

She sits down next to him and tucks her feet up under her. There's a PADD on the table and she picks it up, curious. She glances at him, to see if he objects to her reading it, and gets a small nod of permission.

 _Introduction to Cross-Species Child Psychology_.

Her stomach drops. "Tuvok, I don't want kids." She's been assuming he knew this.

"I am aware," he says. "Neither do I desire any more children of my own. This is something else."

She scrolls down a little. It's a syllabus. "You're going back to school?"

"It is something I am contemplating," he says. He puts his arm around her shoulders. She wonders if he was this hands-on with T'Pel. Probably not. Humans need more touch than Vulcans do.

"On the contrary," Tuvok says. "Within a marriage, Vulcans touch at least as much as humans."

Right. When they're touching he can more or less read every thought that comes into her mind. But back to the matter at hand, "Security to early childhood education is a big leap."

"Thus the need to begin at the introductory level," he says. "I have given the matter much thought. I do not wish to return to security. I enjoy working with children. Should we choose to make this arrangement permanent, the field would be advantageous because, in peace time, any Starfleet installation large enough to have an Admiral in command will have at least one on-site childcare facility. Should we decide not to follow through on this arrangement, a cross-species certification will broaden my opportunities, increasing the likelihood that I will find my work fulfilling."

"Very well thought out," she says, as if anything Tuvok does is ever anything but.

Command drags the decision about Starbase 128 out, and out some more. She's pulled into multiple interviews, and drilled on her knowledge of trans-warp, subspace theory, and temporal mechanics. She knows they're hoping she'll trip up and display some inexcusable lack of knowledge that they can use to deny her the post, but science is her wheelhouse. She reads the monthly physics journal that comes out of the Vulcan Science Academy for fun, and once co-authored a paper with K's't'lk that required her to wrap her head around Hamalki "creative physics". She isn't going to trip up, and she sees dawning, grudging admiration in the eyes of some of her interviewers. Politics aside, she's quite possibly the most qualified person for the job.

"The problem," she rants at him a few days later over pok tar, "is that there are just too many admirals."

They're in a Vulcan restaurant in Addis Ababa, taking a short break from everything. The place is run by second or third generation Vulcan immigrants to Earth. Tuvok gravely disapproves of the idea of serving pok tar with a sweet peanut sauce, but has to admit their cold plomeek salad is good, even if it is made with garlic.

Tuvok doesn't say anything, but she knows she has his full attention, and she continues, "It's not that the work isn't there, it's that not every person running a project needs to be an admiral. But people hang around long enough, and they do a good enough job, and eventually someone thinks they need to be promoted to show their appreciation." She dips one of pieces of pok tar into the peanut sauce and chews aggressively, as if she can take out her frustration about the entire bloated admiralty on this piece of fried dough. "And then of course you have the people who are failed upward to get them out of the way, but let's not even take them into account. Just the people who are doing a good job, and who do deserve acknowledgement...when a person reaches the rank that their best suited for, they should be left alone to continue doing a good job at that rank."

Tuvok calmly sips his tea. Janeway waves her fork as if to dismiss the whole topic. "I'm done." She frowns. "No I'm not. Jean-Luc Picard. He's had to put his foot down about promotion three times now. He'd make a miserable admiral, everyone knows it. The man belongs at the helm of a starship. And yet the only reason he manages to get away with staying in that chair is that the ghost of James T. Kirk told him to, and no one wants to contradict Kirk even if he is dead for real now, presumably." She knows it wasn't really a ghost. Not the point.

She huffs. "Sorry."

"There is no need to apologize. The human need to 'vent' is one I am familiar with," Tuvok says. "I do not disagree with you on any point."

He's carefully pouring out more tea for both of them. She watches his long, elegant fingers. "You have beautiful hands."

He doesn't acknowledge her statement with words, but she can feel the little thrill it gives him, and she wants to drag him off to the nearest hotel room and give his hands the attention they deserve. Along with the rest of him, of course.

She sighs. Not yet. Soon, probably, but not until they're absolutely sure.

Afterward, they walk arm-in-arm through an art fair. She understands now why it's okay to walk with him like this, but holding his hand would be unacceptably intimate for a public space. It's strange, being bonded. She gets things about Tuvok that she never did before, but there's still more about him to learn. She doesn't think she'll ever get bored of talking to him.

"Did you come to Earth to seduce me?" she asks when they're far enough away from the crowd that they won't be overheard.

Tuvok is quiet, and she can feel him turning the question over in his mind. "Not consciously. It is possible that on some level I was already thinking of you as a potential mate, but the only motive that I was aware of for coming to Earth was a desire to be somewhere...safe."

It makes her happy that he thinks of her as safe, but it's heartbreaking that Vulcan wasn't, even for a little while.

He stops to talk to an artist about her textile art, and ends up being gifted with a beautiful wall hanging. The promise of having all your basic needs and then some met by the universal basic credits program means that a lot of artists have taken to giving their art away to people who show an appreciation for it. It's nice to be reminded that the Federation is a pretty good place to live, even if it does have too many admirals.

A little later, they're walking to the transporter station and Tuvok says, "The bond is beginning to fade."

She hasn't noticed, but of course he'd be more sensitive to that. "Can you fix it?"

"I can. But I will not." He stops, looks at her. The street isn't empty, but no one is paying attention to them. He takes a breath, steeling himself. "I want you as my mate, my partner. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. These last weeks have been comfortable, and enjoyable, and as we spend time together, I am growing ever more attached to you. If this is not to be, then I need to begin the work of disentangling myself from it as soon as possible. It will hurt less that way."

She closes her eyes. She doesn't want to hurt him. That's what she's been trying to avoid. It's why she's been hesitating. She has to be sure...

But dragging things out isn't kind either. At a certain point, she has to take the leap and have faith in herself. In him. In them.

"Can you give me a few more days?"

"I can give you three more days. By then the bond will either need to be maintained, or it will dissolve."

That's more than fair. They walk the rest of the way in silence.

It's the middle of the night in Phoenix when they get home. Janeway checks her computer for news of Starbase 128. There are a few dozen messages from Pathfinder suppliers-for a supposedly moneyless society, people are very eager to know when they're going to get paid-but nothing about the new post. She forwards the messages from the suppliers to the people whose job it is to deal with them and gets up from the computer. Tuvok is in the living room reading. There is a glass of wine on the coffee table, and next to it he's set the book she's been working on for the last few nights. He's even put the blanket that she likes to curl up under on her side of the couch.

All at once, she doesn't need another minute. She knows.

"Tuvok."

He looks up.

"The rush of neurochemicals accompanying orgasm solidify the bond, so if we go to bed together, we're as good as married. Do I have that right?"

He sets his PADD down. "Yes."

"Well then. Do you want to marry me?" She swallows, suddenly terrified that he's changed his mind in the last three hours and his answer will be no.

He stands up and takes her hands in his. "Yes, I do. Kathryn."

On his lips, her name sounds like an endearment.

She wakes up the next morning with a naked Vulcan in her bed and an urgent message from Starfleet on the PADD sitting on her night table. She reaches over and reads it through, and then laughs. Tuvok lifts his head from the pillow, one eyebrow raised.

"I got the post," she says. "They want me to leave tomorrow." She stretches and smiled up at the ceiling. "Are you ready for something new?"

He runs his fingers along her her jaw, turning her face and kissing her. "I am."

"Well then," she says, getting out of bed only a little regretfully. "Let's go."

end


End file.
